A former state chair of the Massachusetts College Republicans, I’ve long been bullish on the GOP’s prospects in the Bay State. State voters have shown an aversion to state Democrats’ affection for high taxes. In four consecutive gubernatorial election at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, they elected a Republican Governor. In the 198os, they twice delivered the state to the Gipper.

And yet the state hasn’t elected a Republican to Congress since 1992. Part of the problem has been a moribund state GOP. Its leadership hasn’t responded effectively to the state’s shifting demographics, not understanding that the urban ethnic citizens once a mainstay of the Democratic Party when it was the state’s opposition party through the 1940s and as it gained majority status in the 1950s and 60s were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the cultural liberalism of the party in the 1970s.

This year, however, with economic issues coming to the fore, could Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown capitalize on popular discontent with Democratic policies and win the race to serve out the remainder of Teddy Kennedy’s Senate term?

He has a tough row to hoe in a state where registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by a margin of 3 to 1. Still, even in this state which sends 10 Democrats (and zero Republicans) to the U.S. House of Representatives, over half the voters choose not to register with either of the major parties. And all evidence shows that Brown is not just winning the lion’s share of those voters, he’s winning the lion king’s share, leading his Democratic opponent (whose refusal to debate Brown one-on-one shows she lacks the confidence her superior undergraduate education should afford) among independents by the same margin registered Democrats lead registered Republicans in the state.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about one of my last conversations with [Milton] Friedman when he warned that “even though socialism is a discredited economic model and capitalism is raising living standards to new heights, the left intellectuals continue to push for bigger government everywhere I look.” He predicted that people would be seduced by collectivist ideas again. He was right.

Many thanks to Bruce who has given me such a wonderful forum to scratch my political itch and post cartoons. I’ve been a (quiet) fan of Gay Patriot for quite a while…his voice helping me feel not quite so alone. I’m glad to be here!

The Democratic senator from Arkansas said she was disappointed about a provision in the Senate’s health care bill that will require the federal government to permanently pay the entire cost of Medicaid expansion in Nebraska, while only paying the costs of expansion in the other 49 states for three years.

Um, Blanche, so, why, pray tell, did you vote for the provision? You could have insisted it be removed before you voted for Harry Reid’s health care bill.

Seems like this lady says one thing in Arkansas and votes another way in Washington.

It appears that a band of Joan Rivers impersonators had been deployed to conduct a campaign of terror by disrupting sleep patterns throughout the United States. The Joan Rivers look-alikes talk with voices that interfere with the normal wavelengths of human perception. The cackling and screeching being uttered across the nation would have resulted in mass insomnia from coast to coast.

Thank God our CIA, TSA and worldwide intelligence officials were on the look out for these dangerous suspects and picked up their leader before she had a chance to deploy this evil plot. White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs was quick to point out today that the Joan Rivers Sleeper Cell was a direct result of GITMO being used as a recruiting tool with drag queens.

I’ve always had a thing for the Peace Garden State, choosing to drive across its vast plains when I returned to Los Angeles from my brother’s wedding in Cincinnati in 2004. (It was not a direct route.) So, I’ve followed their politics a bit more closely than most. Although North Dakota voted only once for a Democrat on the presidential level (in the 1964 Johnson landslide) since 1936, it hasn’t sent a Republican to Washington since voters elected then-Congressman Mark Andrews to the Senate in 1980.

Byron Dorgan, the state’s then-Tax Commissioner was elected to replace him in the House. Now, Dorgan is calling it quits.

By all accounts, the junior Senator from North Dakota is a nice guy. I met him once and found him to be a most pleasant fellow. He crafted an image of moderation on the Great Plains, while voting in near lockstep with his party when in the nation’s capital.

Until yesterday, he had given every indication of running for a fourth term in the Senate.* Polls showed him trouncing perennial Republican candidate Duane Sand, yet losing handily to incumbent Governor John Hoeven. But, despite much pressure from Republicans, Hoeven had (heretofore) not offered any indication of his plans for the fall.

Given the collegiality of politics in North Dakota, my sense is that Hoeven called his state’s Senator to alert him of his intention to contest his seat. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do, particularly given Dorgan’s service to the state and decency toward its residents (including Hoeven). Realizing that he couldn’t win against the popular Republican Governor in a Republican state, Dorgan chose to bow out rather than wage a campaign he was sure to lose. (more…)

As House and Senate Democrats work to to reconcile the health care bills passed in each chamber into legislation both can approve and send to the president, they’re not just excluding Republicans from the process, they’re also keeping out anyone who would record the proceedings.

In response to CSPAN’s request that cameras be allowed to capture the happenings of the House-Senate conference on health care, Speaker Pelosi responded that “there has never been a more open process.” Yet, she won’t let cameras in—in spite of President Obama’s promise that the negotiations would indeed be aired on CSPAN.